Do partisanship and politicization undermine the impact of a scientific consensus message about climate change?

Abstract

Scientists are in near-universal agreement that human activity is a primary cause of climate change. Yet, despite this scientific consensus, the American public remains divided when it comes to beliefs about human-induced climate change. We investigate the role of partisan group identity and the politicization of science in undermining the impact of a scientific consensus message about human-induced climate change. We do so with a survey experiment administered on a nationally representative sample, finding that partisan identity—and especially politicization—can stunt the effect of a scientific consensus statement about climate change. We conclude with a discussion about how scientists, as a group, might work with partisans to more effectively communicate scientific information.

Keywords

climate change motivated reasoning politicization scientific consensus

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Bolsen

Druckman

J. N.

(2015). Counteracting the politicization of science. Journal of Communication, 65, 745–769. doi:10.1111/jcom.12171

Bolsen

Druckman

J. N.

Cook

F. L.

(2014a). The influence of partisan motivated reasoning on public opinion. Political Behavior, 36, 235–262. doi:10.1007/s11109-013-9238-0

Bolsen

Druckman

J. N.

Cook

F. L.

(2014b). How frames can stunt support for scientific adaptations: Politicization and the status quo bias. Public Opinion Quarterly, 78, 1–26. doi:10.1093/poq/nft044

Bolsen

Druckman

J. N.

Cook

F. L.

(2015). Citizens’, scientists’, and policy advisors’ beliefs about global warming. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 658, 271–295. doi:10.1177/0002716214558393

Bullock

S. E.

(2011). Mediational analysis is harder than it looks. In Druckman

J. N.

Green

D. P.

Kuklinski

J. H.

Lupia

(Eds.), Cambridge handbook of experimental political science (pp. 508–521). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

Campbell

T. H.

Kay

A. C.

(2014). Solution aversion: On the relation between ideology and motivated disbelief. Journal of Personality and Social Psychology, 107, 809–824. doi:10.1037/a0037963

Cobb

M. D.

Nyhan

Reifler

(2013). Beliefs don’t always persevere: How political figures are punished when positive information about them is discredited. Political Psychology, 34, 307–326. doi:10.1111/j.1467-9221.2012.00935.x

Cook

Lewandowsky

(2016). Rational irrationality: Modeling climate change belief polarization using Bayesian networks. Topics in Cognitive Science, 8, 160–179. doi:10.1111/tops.12186

Cook

Lewandowsky

Ecker

U. K. H.

(2017). Neutralizing misinformation through inoculation: Exposing misleading argumentation techniques reduces their influence. PLoS One, 12, e0175799. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0175799

10.

Cook

Nuccitelli

Green

S. A.

Richardson

Winkler

Painting

. . . Skuce

(2013). Quantifying the consensus on anthropogenic global warming in the scientific literature. Environmental Research Letters, 8, 024024. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/8/2/024024

11.

Cook

Oreskes

Doran

P. T.

Anderegg

W. R.

Verheggen

Maibach

E. W.

. . . Nuccitelli

(2016). Consensus on consensus: A synthesis of consensus estimates on human-caused global warming. Environmental Research Letters, 11, 048002. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/4/048002

12.

Delli Carpini

M. X.

Keeter

. (1996). What Americans know about politics and why it matters. New Haven, CT: Yale University Press.

13.

Deryugina

Shurchkov

(2016). The effect of information provision on public consensus about climate change. PLoS One, 11, e0151469. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0151469

14.

Dietz

(2013). Bringing values and deliberation to science communication. Proceedings of the National Academy of Sciences USA, 110, 14081–14087. doi:10.1073/pnas.1212740110

15.

Druckman

J. N.

(2015a). Eliminating the local warming effect. Nature Climate Change, 5, 176–177. doi:10.1038/nclimate2536

16.

Druckman

J. N.

(2015b). Communicating policy-relevant science. PS: Political Science & Politics, 48, 58–69. doi:10.1017/S1049096515000438

17.

Druckman

J. N.

Kam

C. D.

(2011). Students as experimental participants: A defense of the “narrow data base.” In Druckman

J. N.

Green

D. P.

Kuklinski

J. H.

Lupia

(Eds.), Cambridge handbook of experimental political science (pp. 41–57). New York, NY: Cambridge University Press.

18.

Druckman

J. N.

Lupia

(2017). Using frames to make scientific communication effective. In Scheufele

Kahan

D. M.

Jamieson

K. H.

(Eds.), Handbook of the science of science communication (pp. 13–31). New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

19.

Druckman

J. N.

Nelson

K. R.

(2003). Framing and deliberation: How citizens’ conversations limit elite influence. American Journal of Political Science, 47, 729–745. doi:10.1111/1540-5907.00051

20.

Druckman

J. N.

Peterson

Slothuus

(2013). How elite partisan polarization affects public opinion formation. American Political Science Review, 107, 57–79. doi:10.1017/S0003055412000500

21.

Freudenburg

W. R.

Gramling

Davidson

D. J.

(2008). Scientific certainty argumentation methods (SCAMs): Science and the politics of doubt. Sociological Inquiry, 78, 2–38. doi:10.1111/j.1475-682X.2008.00219.x

22.

Hamilton

L. C

. (2011). Education, politics and opinions about climate change evidence for interaction effects. Climatic Change, 104, 231–242. doi:10.1007/s10584-010-9957-8

23.

Hennes

E. P.

Ruisch

B. C.

Feygina

Monteiro

C. A.

Jost

J. T.

(2016). Motivated recall in the service of the economic system: The case of anthropogenic climate change. Journal of Experimental Psychology: General, 145, 755–771. doi:10.1037/xge0000148

24.

Iacobucci

Posavac

S. S.

Kardes

F. R.

Schneider

M. J.

Popovich

D. L.

(2015a). The median split: Robust, refined, and revived. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25, 690–704. doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2015.06.014

25.

Iacobucci

Posavac

S. S.

Kardes

F. R.

Schneider

M. J.

Popovich

D. L.

(2015b). Toward a more nuanced understanding of the statistical properties of a median split. Journal of Consumer Psychology, 25, 652–665. doi:10.1016/j.jcps.2014.12.002

26.

International Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). (2013). Climate change 2013: The physical science basis. Summary for policymakers. Retrieved from https://www.ipcc.ch/pdf/assessment-report/ar5/wg1/WGIAR5_SPM_brochure_en.pdf

27.

Kahan

D. M.

(2015). Climate-science communication and the measurement problem. Political Psychology, 36, 1–43. doi:10.1111/pops.12244

28.

Kahan

D. M.

(2016). “The strongest evidence to date . . .”: What the van der Linden et al. (2015) data actually show. Unpublished paper, Yale Law School, Yale University, New Haven, CT.

29.

Kinder

D. R.

Sanders

L. M.

(1990). Mimicking political debate with survey questions: The case of White opinion on affirmative action for Blacks. Social Cognition, 8, 73–103. doi:10.1521/soco.1990.8.1.73

30.

Krosnick

J. A.

Brannon

L. A.

(1993). The media and the foundations of presidential support: George Bush and the Persian Gulf conflict. Journal of Social Issues, 49, 167–182. doi:10.1111/j.1540-4560.1993.tb01186.x

31.

Lavelle

(2017). Partisan divide in Congress wider than ever on environmental issues, group says. Retrieved from https://insideclimatenews.org/news/23022017/congress-environmental-climate-change-league-conservation-voters

32.

Lavine

Johnston

Steenbergen

(2012). The ambivalent partisan: How critical loyalty promotes democracy. New York, NY: Oxford University Press.

33.

Leeper

T. J.

Slothuus

(2015). Can citizens be framed? How information, not emphasis, changes opinions. Unpublished paper, Aarhus University, Aarhus, Denmark.

34.

Lenz

(2012). Follow the leader? How voters respond to politicians’ policies and performances. Chicago, IL: University of Chicago Press.

35.

Levendusky

M. S.

(2010). Clearer cues, more consistent voters: A benefit of elite polarization. Political Behavior, 32, 111–131. doi:10.1007/s11109-009-9094-0

36.

Lewandowsky

Ecker

U. K. H.

Seifert

C. M.

Schwarz

Cook

(2012). Misinformation and its correction: Continued influence and successful debiasing. Psychological Science in the Public Interest, 13, 106–131. doi:10.1177/1529100612451018

37.

Lewandowsky

Gignac

G. E.

Vaughan

(2013). The pivotal role of perceived scientific consensus in acceptance of science. Nature Climate Change, 3, 399–404. doi:10.1038/nclimate1720

38.

Maibach

E. W.

van der Linden

S. D.

(2016). The importance of assessing and communicating scientific consensus. Environmental Research Letters, 11, 091003. doi:10.1088/1748-9326/11/9/091003

39.

Nelson

T. E.

Oxley

Z. M.

Clawson

R. A.

(1997). Toward a psychology of framing effects. Political Behavior, 19, 221–246. doi:10.1023/A:1024834831093

40.

Nyhan

Reifler

(2010). When corrections fail: The persistence of political misperceptions. Political Behavior, 32, 303–330. doi:10.1007/s11109-010-9112-2

41.

Oreskes

Conway

E. C.

(2010). Merchants of doubt: How a handful of scientists obscured the truth on issues from tobacco smoke to global warming. New York, NY: Bloomsbury.

42.

Rosenberg

Vedlitz

Cowman

D. F.

Zahran

(2010). Climate change: A profile of US climate scientists’ perspectives. Climatic Change, 101, 311–329. doi:10.1007/s10584-009-9709-9

43.

Schuldt

J. P.

Konrath

S. H.

Schwarz

(2011). “Global warming” or “climate change”?: Whether the planet is warming depends on question wording. Public Opinion Quarterly, 75, 115–124. doi:10.1093/poq/nfq073

44.

Schuldt

J. P.

Roh

Schwarz

(2015). Questionnaire design effects in climate change surveys: Implications for the partisan divide. The ANNALS of the American Academy of Political and Social Science, 658, 67–85. doi:10.1177/0002716214555066

45.

Steketee

(2010, November 20). Some skeptics make it a habit to be wrong. The Australian. Retrieved from http://www.theaustralian.com.au/national-affairs/some-sceptics-make-it-a-habit-to-be-wrong/news-story/dc6663c1ae9c1371578c682dd78d5afa

46.

Taber

C. S.

Lodge

(2006). Motivated skepticism in the evaluation of political beliefs. American Journal of Political Science, 50, 755–769. 10.1111/j.1540-5907.2006.00214.x

47.

Van der Linden

. (2016). A conceptual critique of the cultural cognition thesis. Science Communication, 38, 128–138. doi:10.1177/1075547015614970

48.

Van der Linden

Leiserowitz

Maibach

E. W

. (2016). Communicating the scientific consensus on human-caused climate change is an effective and depolarizing public engagement strategy: Experimental evidence from a large national replication study. Retrieved from https://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=2733956

49.

Van der Linden

Leiserowitz

Rosenthal

Maibach

. (2017). Inoculating the public against misinformation about climate change. Global Challenges, 1, 1600008. doi:10.1002/gch2.201600008

50.

Van der Linden

S. L.

Leiserowitz

A. A.

Feinberg

G. D.

Maibach

E. W

. (2015). The scientific consensus on climate change as a gateway belief: Experimental evidence. PLoS One, 10, e0118489. doi:10.1371/journal.pone.0118489

Supplementary Material

Please find the following supplemental material available below.

For Open Access articles published under a Creative Commons License, all supplemental material carries the same license as the article it is associated with.

For non-Open Access articles published, all supplemental material carries a non-exclusive license, and permission requests for re-use of supplemental material or any part of supplemental material shall be sent directly to the copyright owner as specified in the copyright notice associated with the article.

0.00 MB

0.01 MB